'If you don't believe in climate change you must be sick'

[jtuck004]

(That's the headline)

The source here reports...

A University of Oregon professor, Kari Norgaard, who wrote "Living in Denial", presented a paper at a conference which suggests that climate change skeptics must have a "sickness".

The professor, who holds a B.S. in biology and a master's and PhD in sociology, argued that ‘cultural resistance’ to accepting humans as being responsible for climate change ‘must be recognized and treated’ as an aberrant sociological behavior.

and suggests that confronting that issue is on par with overcoming racism.

Millions of people are exhibiting the same affliction at the same time? A plague of mind-sickness? Hard for me to picture, just because opponents choose to argue the point with nothing that the professor sees as substantial. Maybe they are just bullies or with a different value system, doesn't make 'em sick. Doesn't make 'em well, either.

The housing plan for all of us leaves a little to be desired, suggests that we all be packed tightly into cities and get off the rest of the earth, more or less.

I wonder what those classes are like? I wonder what the PhD dissertation was like? Maybe I will find it one day...

[cherokeeprogressive]

1. ‘We certainly don’t want "them" (humans) strolling about the entire countryside.'

As if she's NOT human, or somehow better than those of whom she speaks.

So they want humans to be the only life without freedom to roam the planet at will...

Not happenin'.

[Kalidurga]

2. I live in Minnesota...

and despite the fact that the last 20 winters or so have been milder than what used to be average, there are still climate change deniers. I can understand someone arguing that climate change would happen with or without people on the planet. But, to deny it is happening at all is kinda sick. Don't know if it is an actual mental illness, but climate change deniers are starting to look a lot like flat earthers.

[OccupyTheIRS]

3. Common rhetorical device

Anyone who disagrees with me is unreasonable, incapable of thought and not to be argued with. For effectiveness, it must be coupled with getting people to like you first. If they like you, they will be inclined to believe anything you say.

[sudopod]

4. I tend to believe many of the most damaging un-ideas floating around out there

including various flavors of science denial, hate ideologies, corporate loyalties, and fanatical religions could be considered memetic plagues in the right contexts.

[CJCRANE]

5. And these 'un-ideas'

often come in a package, so a person doesn't just subscribe to one of them but to several, even if they're contradictory.

[sudopod]

6. Memeplexes, I think they call them.

alt.mimetics Usenet archive:
http://www.lucifer.com/virus/alt.memetics/

This book is a winner. It explains things in terms of advertising:
http://www.amazon.com/Virus-Mind-The-Science-Meme/dp/0963600117

Also, youtube has a BBC series called "Century of the Self" that talks about the re-purposing of psychology to sell things, including conservative ideas. Very eye opening.

The essential idea is that a meme, like a gene, is a replicator. Memes reproduce by spreading from person to person, and as they spread, they can subtly mutate. Natural selection works on memes when the memes that spread well and "stick" live and get passed on, whereas those that can't do not. Compare non-recruiting Zoroastrianism to Islam. Each generation of memes is more powerful, more hard to avoid, more contagious than the last.

Other ideas can survive because they are based on reality. For example, general relativity will always be with us, just because it is written into the fabric of the universe.

One caveat, though. Memetics is still a "protoscience." The definitions and metrics are just too fuzzy to make strong mathematical predictions, and any sort of experiment is probably unethical. No one's going to smile upon making infectious memes and releasing them on the unsuspecting public.

When I'm feeling depressed about the state of the world, I often wonder if someone on the other side has funded this sort of research, and has found a comprehensive theory of memetics, and is now producing weaponized memes to steer public opinion.

[jtuck004]

8. I believe characterizing it as you did leaves us much more hope. We can

at least address a memetic plague, or weaponized memes that are spread like viruses. We could protect it like we do IT assets, gate off the computers, and...

oops, another 2 million credit card accounts hacked...

ok, not always successful, but at least we have something to work toward.

Calling opponents dumb or stupid or crazy as I see some do, and they might be right, (i.e. opponents lacking in mental ability), but I don't think so, and that would be a lot harder to fix. And it coud lead to underestimating them or leaving yourself vulnerable to an attack you didn't expect.

I am going to look for the book you mentioned. I still think learning more about such methods of persuasion is our best bet, especially when we push cooperative and sustainable democratic ideals.

Thank you.

[saras]

7. You know how dumb the average person is? Well, half of them are dumber than THAT.

And if the mainstream looks good to you, that tells you which half you're in.

[longship]

13. Carlin rules!

nt

[saras]

19. Shit. That was George Carlin? I thought it was Edward Tufte or someone like that.

I guess Carlin must have studied statistics in school

[greytdemocrat]

9. Wow!!!

What a nutjob.

[MH1]

10. Got a better link than the Daily Mail? I hate to give them traffic.

My understanding from a few years on DU is that the Daily Mail isn't a great source. Doesn't mean there isn't some fact in the article, just that it is likely to be skewed, a la Faux News.

[MH1]

12. And for what it's worth, I would probably agree with her from a sociological standpoint.

Doesn't necessarily mean that it's helpful to go around saying that, but yeah, denialists tend to be 'sick' in a way similar to people with extreme authoritarian personalities. They hurt society with their fucked-up ways of interacting with the rest of the world.

[jtuck004]

15. Well, I usually just read the factual basis of the articles, and separate that

from opinion, but I understand about the traffic, I guess.

I tried the university site, got a database error, and most of the links I found are radical right, so you can probably sort through that crap from your own google search as well as I can.

I did notice some sample chapters of her book here:

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12539&mode=toc

[Viking12]

11. Thanks for sharing, Rush

You do know that you've just quoted Limbaugh's take almost word-4-word, right? That the Daily mail is the Fox News of the UK, right? That the Professor's position is far more nuanced than presented here, right?

[jtuck004]

14. Well, what I quoted was from the newspaper, if you need to have that point repeated.

But since you think you know so much feel free to elucidate. As far as what RL says I don't know, don't listen. Not the fan you are perhaps? But there is nothing like starting off a post with an ad hominem attack, (a favorite of his, I hear), instead of this wonderful "nuance" that will make everything whole again. I can't wait, but it's too late for coffee.

Poster presentations are used to bring up a lot of ideas for which sufficient research has not been done yet, so it 's not so much an explanation of nuance that is needed but data, whether qualitative or quantitative (I have a preference for the former, but that's just me).

As far as what I said personally, if you don't like it that sucks for you, but in no way, nuanced or not, do I think that even if you joined a like-minded group, especially a political group that chose to ignore my lucid and well-supported points, are you exhibiting an altered mental state or exhibiting aberrant behavior, or even that a whole bunch of you might be creating a new aberrant sociological phenomenon. (Waiting on the data...)

Certainly one might be willfully ignorant or stubborn. But those are choices, not an illness.

With what little I could find about this I get the impression that this is creating a big straw figure, piling the nuance higher and higher, attempting to move the blame for miscommunication and the inept educating or telling of the story to to the public from scientists (who it sounds like she is allied with) to people who have rejected their approach.

(Tavris and Aronson wrote a good book, "Mistakes Were Made, but Not By Me". I wonder if climate scientists and their communication could have been the subject of another chapter?)

That we can put perfectly good facts, derived from the highest allegiance to the scientific method on the table and it is rejected doesn't mean they have created a culture within a culture and millions of people are sharing a delusional meme.

What if they just feel disrespected? That is a POWERFUL motivator for hate. Maybe they just don't like the person that is the purveyor or people allied with them, and have decided to make a choice to disagree, disavow, and simply not believe it. Maybe they are just annoyed. Or maybe they want to make money in the short term and this would interfere with that. Greed or selfishness don't mandate "treatment".

Should democrats who think we should feed the poor, or those that think it is wiser to tell kids about sex and condoms early, before they start having sex, be committed, or commended? Not everyone agrees, and some might just as well think a mental haze has set in across the Democratic landscape, and we all need to be put in boxcars and taken to a treatment facility. Just need enough nuance to make it happen.

It is a slippery slope, and once that slide starts, it's tough to stop.

[Edim]

16. The professor is projecting. nt.

[HiPointDem]

17. "must be recognized and treated as an aberrant social behavior" = fascist speak

[Dilldoe]

18. People do have the right to be stupid and ignorant in America

the problem America has is that just enough people who think that the points made by the stupid and ignorant are valid and legitimate.